Diane Sawyer's unusual behavior -- slurred, slow speech and lethargy -- set off a Twitter frenzy during her election night coverage with Goerge Stephanopoulos. Users speculated she was drunk or on painkillers and other drugs.

(Donna Svennevik/ABC/Associated Press)

Was she drunk or was she pushed?

Diane Sawyer's increasingly bizarre behavior during Tuesday night's election telecast set off a Twitter storm as the ABC News anchor at times spoke slowly, laughed hysterically and seemed to be propping herself up at the anchor desk she shared with George Stephanopoulos.

Network officials declined to comment, but a Sawyer pal chalked her behavior up to exhaustion from covering Hurricane Sandy and preparingfor election night."She spent a number of sleepless nights preparing and rehearsing," a close friend of the anchor told The Daily News, denying Sawyer had indulged in alcoholic beverages or any other substance. "It just caught up to her."

The explantion did not appease the blogosphere, where twitterers had a field day branding Sawyer as "a bit tipsy," "wacky," “hammered” or “on pain killers, muscle relaxers, benzos or some combination."

Sawyer was at the anchor desk for about eight hours and also worked through a power failure that left the parts of the ABC’s elaborate Times Square Studio dark for around 25 minutes. Just before 11 p.m. the lights around Sawyer and Stephanopoulos flickered off along with the lights that powered a huge video screen on the floor.

Sawyer addressed the power outage and the thousands of tweets about her performance on her own Twitter feed Wednesday.

“Awe for the @ABC powerhouse team. Hail the techs who kept us on air...” and then followed up: “Read your tweets the good, bad, and the funny.”